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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26979301">His Political Smile</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/billyghosts/pseuds/billyghosts'>billyghosts</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Danny Phantom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, POV Outsider, Past Character Death, Secret Identity, Therapy, Vlad is Danny's Guardian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 03:28:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,297</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26979301</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/billyghosts/pseuds/billyghosts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lori, a therapist at a Juvenile Detention Center, encounters a kid named Danny who is reluctant to open up to her, but she is determined to help him no matter how powerful his graudian is.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>110</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lori had worked at Elmerton’s Juvenile Detention Center for almost fifteen years, and she’d see all too many children slip through the cracks. It was enough to make her weary of the world, but she tried to keep her spirits up. She had to keep her exterior polished. If she didn't, the children she worked with would tear her apart. They were vicious little creatures that had been wronged by the world too early in life to see how things could ever be better.</p><p>Lori oversaw a few group sessions as well as countless individual sessions. She’d talked to so many children that most of their stories started to blend together. When she’d first started, she’d tried to remember every single one of her patients, their faces, their stories, but that was too much for only one woman to bear. When a new patient came to her, she already had their records in front of her, all their wrongdoings, all their personal problems laid out in front of her like they were at a character selection screen of the video games she played with her nephew.</p><p>The new kid in front of her, Daniel Fenton looked like a piece of work on paper. He’d run away from his home at least twice, he’d been truant most of his academic career, and he’d landed in Elmerton’s Juvenile Detention Center for breaking and entering his neighbor’s house. In person, he sat perfectly still, polite, almost creepy. Lori closed his file and stared at him, but he refused to look away, angling his head up so that it was looking down at her. His dull eyes seemed to follow her every move. He was stilling up perfectly straight and alert, yet he still looked unusually small for his age.</p><p>“This is your first time in my office, correct?” she asked him, trying to appear casual and calm.</p><p>He nodded once, a small, stilted motion that Lori almost missed. She was used to quiet kids, but Daniel seemed off somehow. Lori was determined to find out what made him so different.</p><p>“Well, according to my records, the charges brought against you are not terribly severe, but we will be spending at least a month together. I suggest we get to know each other. My name is Lori. I’ve worked here for fifteen years. Your name is Daniel, correct?”</p><p>Daniel didn’t respond, keeping his still. He was still upright with perfect posture, it was unusual, most kids tended to slouch as if it made them cool. Or perhaps invisible. She mirrored his posture, trying to hide that his unusual behavior worried her.</p><p>“Well, Daniel—”</p><p>“Danny,” he interrupted. He spoke quietly, like a stray cat finally working up the courage to steal her food. Lori smiled as kindly as she could.</p><p>“Well, Danny, do you want to explain to me why you’re here?” she asked. Danny scoffed and finally looked away from her. Lori watched as his eyes traveled over the sparse decorations of her office.</p><p>“Don’t you have my whole life story already?” he said dejectedly as he eyed her framed picture of her dog next to the door.</p><p>Lori leaned back in her chair and clarified, “Yes, I suppose, but I would like to hear it from your point of view.” She paused to give Danny time to comment, but he didn’t answer her. She tried not to feel disappointed. “You were arrested for breaking into your neighbor’s house. You were found on their kitchen floor, trying to light a fire.” Danny rolled his eyes. “Do you not agree with that statement?”</p><p>He didn’t answer. Lori watched him, trying not to fidget. Danny kept his hands hidden in his lap which was hidden from Lori’s view by her desk. He stared past Lori, his eyes glazed over; he seemed to be a million miles away.</p><p>“Danny, I’m trying to help—”</p><p>“Look, I’m sure you’re great at your job, fifteen years or whatever, but this isn’t for me. I’ve had bad experiences before. I’m here because I have to be,” Danny interrupted, surprising Lori. She hadn’t been expecting an outburst from just a quiet kid, but Lori had heard variants of the same opinion almost weekly since she’d arrived at Elmerton’s Juvenile Detention Center. She heard it so often that she had the same programmed response for every time a kid said it.</p><p>“Danny, therapy is for everyone. It just might take you a while to find what kind works for you.”</p><p>“Look, I don’t know what you want me to say. That I regret it? Because I do. It was an accident. I told the police that. I’m sure it’s in my statements. The system doesn’t work anyway. I’m going to get out early. My records will be erased. This isn’t going to matter.” Danny seemed to be annoyed with her. Lori wasn’t sure when that had started, but she had to get him back on track.</p><p>“Why do you think that?” Lori looked through the papers on her desk, “According to my records you will be here for at least a month.”</p><p>“I don’t think that,” Danny explained, “I <em>know</em> that.” He lifted his arms to emphasize his words, his tone growing sharp.</p><p>“How do you know that?” Lori asked. She’d never seen such confidence in one of her kids without seeing the slight cracks underneath it. She couldn’t see the cracks in Danny’s words; he truly believed what he was saying.</p><p>“I know because it’s happened before,” he stated coolly, leaving no room for debate.</p><p>“Danny…you’ve never been in the system before.” Lori had looked through his records. He’d never been charged before yesterday. “What makes you think this has happened before?”</p><p>“Look, we can keep this up all day, but the more I tell you, the more danger you’ll be in.”</p><p>“Danny,” Lori said, reaching out to Danny, “Are you in danger?” Danny laughed.</p><p>“No. Well…” He paused, lost in thought. Lori ran all her protocols for endangered children through her head. “Not really. I mean, in mortal danger? No. But physical danger? I guess. But who isn’t?”</p><p>“Danny,” Lori said slowly, trying to convey the seriousness she felt, “You are not in danger in our facility. We have guards everywhere. If you have people waiting to get you after you get out, we can—” Danny let out a humorless laugh.</p><p>“You think your guards will do anything? Tell me, do those papers tell you who my guardian is?”</p><p>“Is your guardian putting you in danger?” Lori asked. She needed to get through to Danny. She couldn’t lose another kid to the system. Danny pointed to her paper.</p><p>“Read through that again. Look at who my guardian is,” he insisted. Lori relented, scanning the papers.</p><p>“Vlad Masters,” she read. Lori leaned back in her chair. Vlad Masters was one of the richest men in America. A multibillionaire. He was mayor of the next town over and trying to work his way up to be governor. There was no way he didn’t have a million lawyers standing by to make sure he kept Danny at all costs. He was the sort of man that demanded a clean reputation. Ever accusation that had ever been brought against the man had mysteriously disappeared.</p><p>“See?” Danny said, breaking Lori out of her thoughts, “This doesn’t matter. You can’t help me.” It was true. She couldn’t. She’d seen her friends lose their jobs trying to help kids like Danny before. Was it worth it?</p><p>“Can you at least talk to me?” Lori asked, “I won’t try to help if you don’t want me to. Nothing you say will ever leave this room. But Danny, talking can help you. I can try to give you advice.” Danny seemed to fight with himself. She let him do so, watching him. She didn’t want to interrupt in case it decided to start talking.</p><p>“Alright, I’ll satisfy your curiosity,” he finally said, “what do you want to know?”</p><p>“Why did you break into your neighbor’s house?”</p><p>“It was honestly an accident,” he said, “Vlad had just moved us into a new townhouse in downtown Amity, and I was coming home late. It was dark. I was disorientated. I went into the wrong house.”</p><p>“Surely you noticed the door was locked?”</p><p>“Yeah, uh…” He let out a nervous laugh, “Don’t know how I missed that.”</p><p>“There were no signs of forced entry, how did you get in?”</p><p>“Pass.” He brushed the question off with a wave of his hand. Lori wanted to press, but she could see Danny started to close off. She had to keep moving, or she’d lose him.</p><p>“Alright, what about the fire?”</p><p>“I wasn’t trying to start a fire. Honest.”</p><p>“You were found in the kitchen holding an ignited blowtorch the resident used for cooking.”</p><p>“Uh, it was so I could see?” Danny shrugged as he spoke, not believing his own lie.</p><p>“Really? That’s what you’re going with?” She wasn’t getting anywhere. “Okay, never mind. Let’s go back a step. Why were you disorientated? Had you been drinking?”</p><p>“No!” Danny exclaimed, offended, “I don’t have time for stuff like that anyway.” Lori found it odd he objected to even the notion of drinking. Most of the kids she talked with openly admitted to drinking.</p><p>“Why don’t you have time?” she pressed.</p><p>“Uh…school?” Danny said, shrugging.</p><p>“Danny, please be honest with me. That’s the only way you’re going to get anything out of this. This is for you to feel better, not to satisfy me.” At least, that wasn’t the primary concern. Lori had always had a deep desire to know more about everyone around her. To understand what made people tick. Now she needed to know what made Danny tick.</p><p>“Fine. I was disorientated because I was injured. Lost some blood.” Lori wanted to ask why he was injured, but she knew that would lock her out of Danny’s mind for good.</p><p>“That must have been scary,” she said. He shrugged.</p><p>“I guess.”</p><p>“Were you going home to treat it?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Then why the fire?”</p><p>“My uh…” He rubbed the back his neck, looking down. “My friend used to help me stitch up bad injuries. She was in charge of buying the supplies. I’m not good at remembering on my own. I suck at it actually.” He laughed. “Anyway, I could tell it was…bad. I had to close it somehow.” Lori could see where he was going. It sounded like one of the unrealistic scenarios that were always in her nephew’s video games.</p><p>“You…were going to cauterize your own wound?” she asked, incredulous.</p><p>“Not going to.” He lifted a finger in objection. “I did.”</p><p>“Successfully?”</p><p>“I mean, it stopped bleeding. That’s successful, right?” Lori hid her face in her hands for a moment. What was this kid involved in? She felt like she was finally getting to know who Danny was. He was a bad liar, had a bad sense of humor, and took pride in weird things.</p><p>“And you’ve had to do that before?” she asked.</p><p>“A few times.” Danny seemed anxious to end her line of questioning as if he’d only just realized what he’d said, but her curiosity was at an all-time high. She wanted to know every thought passing through his mind.</p><p>“You said that you had a friend who would get you supplies and help, what happened to her?”</p><p>“She died,” he said, unable to meet Lori’s gaze. He shrunk in on himself. Lori cursed at herself in her head. She’d just lost the openness she had finally gained with Danny.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to regain Danny’s openness.</p><p>“It’s not your fault.” He wrapping his arms around himself. “It was almost a year ago.” Lori could tell he was holding back his true feelings in the way he seemed to shake without moving.</p><p>“You know, a year isn’t that long. It’s okay to feel upset. Grief is a long process”</p><p>Danny didn’t answer her. Deliberately looking at the wall to his left.</p><p>“What about your friends now?” she said, “Do they support you?”</p><p>“All I have now is Vlad,” Danny said softly.</p><p>“Danny, you need a support system. Especially during difficult—”</p><p>“You think I don’t know that?” Danny cut her off, tension lining every muscle in his body, “Do you think I wanted this? My friends are dead! My family is dead! No one wanted to be friends with the weird kid before this, and now?” He laughed. “You’d be marked a social pariah to approach the weird kid whose friend and family died!”</p><p>“How does that feel?”</p><p>“Being an exile at school? Oh, it feels <em>great</em>!”</p><p>“Is that why you’re absent so much?”</p><p>“Sure.” Danny scoffed. Lori checked the time. They had five minutes left.</p><p>“Danny, are you unsafe staying with Vlad Masters?” she asked. Danny let out a false laugh.</p><p>“I’m never safe.”</p><p>“Can you tell me what that means?” Lori asked. Danny didn’t move. “Danny, you said earlier that you would be out of here early.” She noticed Danny watching her through narrow eyes. “Assuming that you’re right, would you be able to continue these sessions with me every week?”</p><p>Danny sighed, hiding his face in his hands. Eventually, he looked up. “Even if I wanted to,” he said, “I can’t. You’ll be in danger.”</p><p>“Why do you think that?”</p><p>“Multiple reasons.”</p><p>“Give me one.” Lori waited for him to speak. He took his time, taking in a deep breath, avoiding her eye.</p><p>“Everyone around me either dies or gets hurt,” he said, then paused, but Lori didn’t fill the silence. She let him stew in his own feelings until he continued talking. “I’m the reason that my family’s dead. My friends. Even people I barely know suffer because of me. I feel like I’m cursed” He stopped talking again, winding his hands together in a gesture of worry. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”</p><p>“That’s okay Danny. If you can take anything away from today, I want you to know that you are not cursed. It’s a tragedy that you have experienced so much death, but I promise you that you are not the cause of everyone’s suffering.” Danny shook his head, but Lori continued. “Even if you are cursed, I’m not scared. I want you to come back to me next week.”</p><p>“You don’t want that,” Danny protested, “You think you do, but you don’t.”</p><p>There was a soft knock on the door as Lori’s clock marked the end of the hour. “Danny,” she said, “please come back.” She was terrified for the kid. He was so close to being lost to the system.</p><p>“Alright,” he said, standing, keeping his eyes locked on the door, “I’ll try.”</p><p>“Thank you.” Lori breathed out. “You can leave. Same time next week. The guard will walk you back to your room.”</p><p>The door opened, and a guard took Danny back to his room. His cell. Lori wanted to cry. She hadn’t felt that need in a long time. She didn’t want Danny to lose to whatever he was fighting. Her next appointment was led in by another guard, and she tried to put Danny behind her.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lori walked into her office at Elmerton’s Juvenile Detention Center the next day to find a man sitting at her desk. He was relaxed in her chair, flipping through her notes.</p><p>“Excuse me,” she said, “Those are private documents. They stay between me and my clients.”</p><p>The man looked up, his long gray hair slicked back in an off-putting style. He wore a three-piece suit and kept a relaxed demeanor. “Lori McMahon. Forty-six. Graduated from Northwestern University with a master’s degree in occupational therapy. Lives on Pinewood avenue with her dog. Her sister’s family lives down the street.”</p><p>“What is this about?” Lori demanded. She’d always thought she was good under pressure, but now she felt like she was going to collapse. “Are you threatening me?” The man laughed.</p><p>“Oh, Ms. McMahon.” He clicked his tongue. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”</p><p>“I haven’t done anything,” she said, “I’m going to need you to leave.” She pointed to her office door, but the man didn’t move. He sat with a perfect stillness that seemed familiar. He kept tension reserved in every muscle of his body like he was prepared to attack at any moment.</p><p>“Oh, but I can’t do that. See, Daniel told you he was a danger to be involved with. He really did try to give you an out. But you just <em>so </em>persistent.”</p><p>“Masters,” she whispered before she could stop herself. She could see it now, in the way he held himself above her, in the way money was practically dripping off of him. He knew that he could get away with anything he wanted to. He could do anything he wanted to. He probably knew that she’d wanted to keep seeing Danny, wanted to gather enough information to go to the police.</p><p>“Ah. I knew you were smart. See, here’s the problem. Daniel told you sensitive information. His mere existence is sensitive information. I’ve already wiped the data of his little stay at your facility from the system, and he acted unremarkable around every person he saw because he knew the risks; however, you got him to break. No one except you will remember him. I cannot have you remembering that my ward was here.”</p><p>Masters stood up from her desk slowly. He picked up her notes from her session with Danny and tore them in half with a deliberate movement, ever breaking eye contact with her. He walked over to her. She took a step back. He stepped forward again until she was pushed against the wall.</p><p>“You will never speak of Daniel to anyone. You will never mention him at all. You will never even dare to think of him again. If for some reason you do, and trust that I will know, well… you can infer what will happen to you.”</p><p>“You can’t do this,” Lori whispered, pushed her finger against Masters’ chest. “You cannot keep controlling that kid. He needs help.”</p><p>“Oh, there’s no denying that,” Masters said with a laugh. He wrapped his large hand around Lori’s finger, pulling it away from his chest, squeezing it painfully tight. “But that help will never be from you. I have provided Daniel with everything he shall ever need. I am the picture of a perfect guardian. And you will never call that into question.</p><p>“The only reason you are not already dead is that Daniel pleaded with me. He begged me to spare you. Apologized for telling you so much. He traded many of his comforts for your life. And I know Daniel isn’t much of a talker. At least not anymore. So that means you weaseled the words out of him. You are the reason he is in the position he is right now. And you will have to live with that for the rest of your life. However long that may be.”</p><p>Lori’s throat hurt, but she needed to appear strong in front of Masters. She kept herself upright with all the strength she could muster. Masters smiled, and she knew that he could see right through her façade. He let go of her finger that was turning purple, and it burned as the blood flowed back.</p><p>“I’m afraid I must go now,” he said looking at his watch that probably cost more than Lori’s yearly salary, “Pesky prior engagement.” He backed up, letting her off the wall. His face stretched into a political smile. He gave a brief wave and walked out of her office without bothering to close the door behind him.</p><p>Lori slid down the wall and started to cry.</p><p> </p>
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